Monday, February 4, 2008

Jay Schalin on the Sex Workers Art Show

We obtained the following picture from an anonymous attendant of the Sex Workers Art Show. It depicts transvestite Krylon Superstar on his/her hands and knees with a sparkler inserted into his buttocks, and as seemed likely, his/her rectum. The words "F___ Bush" were taped onto his chest with red tape (not visible). This spectacle was the grand finale to end the show.

The Sex Workers Art Show was far, far more grotesque than we could have ever imagined. We can assure you our cartooning ways are not even close to finished. Jay Schalin of the John Williams Pope Center for Higher Education Policy wrote about the spectacle last night. Let us just say that Jay was censorious of the kind of utter vulgarity on display in an effort to protect his readers' sensibilities.

We understand that an anonymous person was successful at obtaining limited video footage of the event and complete audio coverage, which may be made available sooner or later. If we can get it, we will see if we can post it.

We also obtained interviews with Annie Oakley, the "brains" behind the operation and Martha Brucato, the student in Healthy Devils who brought the Sex Workers Art Show to Duke. We will write on those shortly.

It should also be noted that according to Annie, what we saw was the "PG-13 version."

I hope your focus on this is not to condemn such shows, which despite their vulgarity can be entertaining and even (gulp) enriching. Freedom of expression should not be squelched, unless Duke wants to be more like Liberty University or Bob Jones University (yes, BJU).

However, rarely is there such a quick demonstration of hypocrisy of the Duke Administration's treatment of the groups sponsoring this event in the face of its so-recent "no stripper" policy. That policy, that is, the regulation of students' decisions on entertainment, should be scrapped entirely.

It certainly appears that the only sexually appealing entertainments currently banned are heterosexual.

He added that he plans to address the issue further at the Feb. 20 meeting of Duke Student Government, at which point he hopes to have a better idea about how the committee's goals can be advanced without incurring legal action.

snip

I suggest you send someone to the 2/20 meeting to ask Dean Nowicki the following question: "What are you trying to hide?"

What those who care about Duke (which apparently excludes most of the current administration) understand is that Duke's reputation today is the sum total of all its performance in the past. This includes scholarship, merit, intellectual activity, spirit, athletic and academic success, respect, public service).

Duke's future reputation will be the sum total of its past, now mixed with its present, behavior.

Can you imagine the caption to the photo you post of the stripper with the flame burning out of his ass during his/her performance on campus:

Can they no longer tell right from wrong, good from bad, true from false? Are they so deconstructed and nihilistic that this looks like "freedom" to them? It is not freedom. It is decadence. I am a grad and I will not give them a nickel until they turn this around.

The program at the performance very explicitly stated that photographs and video were forbidden. To ignore that prohibition was a serious breach of ethics on your part. You clearly violated boundaries of the performers. Instead, you took what you wanted and felt you were entitled to in spite of their unambiguous "no." If you want to find hypocrisy, I would suggest you look at yourself before you condemn anyone else.

Incidentally, by broadcasting what you deem lewd, you are ensuring that MORE rather than fewer people see what you would call vulgarity. Now that's irony!

We received video from an anonymous source and photographs also from anonymous sources. It seems there were a lot of people taking pictures. Take it up with them. Moreover, to our knowledge the no video no photo request was not for the performers boundaries - they were perfectly fine with it, actually - but was a HealthyDevils request.

Our objection is not to the show itself, but to Duke's hypocrisy. Our objective has never been to make sure that people do not see the content of the show, but instead to make sure that there can be no debate about the content.

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